Month: May 2005

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has found a new way to get the word out about its efforts. Food Force is a free downloadable video game (for the PC and Mac) designed by the WFP, in which the users will “Play the game, learn about food aid, and help WFP work towards a world without hunger.”
Within the context of the fictional nation of Sheylan, the player embarks on a series of missions intended to give users a feel for the way in which the WFP does business. Continue Reading...

Interested in reading and reviewing various publications for your blog? Head on over to Mind & Media, a blog-based book reviewing service. The Acton Institute has placed three titles from the Lexington Books Studies in Ethics & Economics series, edited by Acton director of research Samuel Gregg. Continue Reading...

According to the AP, Molly Akers has filed a lawsuit against the University of Chicago Hospitals, seeking more than $200,000 in damages for the pain, suffering and lost wages she suffered when her healthy right breast was surgically removed. Continue Reading...

A New York Times editorial today argues that spreading concerns about the ethical validity of chimeras (human-animal hybrids) are unfounded. Here is a summary of the argument:
1) Strange and disturbing possibilities are more like science-fiction than real science. Continue Reading...

Noting the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alexis de Tocqueville, Samuel Gregg analyzes the current situation in Europe. “Tocqueville’s vision of ‘soft-despotism’ is thus one of arrangements that mutually corrupt citizens and the democratic state,” and clear signs of this ‘soft-despotism’ are emerging, contends Gregg. Continue Reading...

Iain Murray at Tech Central Station writes that the EU is going to have a lot of trouble meeting its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, and this could have disastrous economic effects. Continue Reading...

Fast Food Tax Redux
As I alerted you to more than three weeks ago, Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has proposed a 2% tax on fast food restaurants, in a vain attempt to cover the city’s fiscal woes. Continue Reading...

Max Blumenthal over at Arianna Huffington’s overhyped new blog, “The Huffington Post,” concludes that “the struggle for America’s future is not a conflict between political parties, but between two ideologies. One values individual freedom, the other, clerical authoritarianism. Continue Reading...

This BBC Newshour story (RealAudio) following on the first Rolls-Royce automobile purchased in India in fifty years contains some interesting analysis about the state of the Indian economy. Citing the liberalization of the economy beginning in 1991, Indian diplomat Pavan Varma states that “the number of people below the poverty line have been reduced fairly dramatically.” This in spite of the protestations of the interviewer, Claire Bolderson, that the gap between rich and poor illustrates “quite a contradictory picture that’s emerging from India today.” Continue Reading...

The official in charge of governmental relief funds in Indonesia is “shocked” at the lack of reconstruction progress in the Aceh province, fully five months after the Indian Ocean tsunami.
BBC News reports that Kuntoro Mangkusubroto primarily blames bureaucratic wrangling for the delays. Continue Reading...